Monday, June 27, 2016

If I Stay

***DISCLAIMER***
The following review is entirely my opinion. If you comment (which I
encourage you to do) be respectful. If you don't agree with my opinion
(or other commenters), that's fine. To each their own. These reviews
are not meant to be statements of facts or endorsements, I am just
sharing my opinions and my perspective when watching the film and is
not meant to reflect how these films should be viewed. Finally, the
reviews are given on a scale of 0-5. 0, of course, being
unwatchable. 1, being terrible. 2, being not great. 3, being okay.
4, being great and 5, being epic! And if you enjoy these reviews
feel free to share them and follow the blog or follow me on
Twitter (@RevRonster) for links to my reviews and the occasional
live-Tweet session of the movie I'm watching! Drink every time this film says the word "stay."

If I Stay – 2 out of 5

Out of body experiences and ghosts are not uncommon themes
in the world of fiction.Sometimes the
ghosts do cool things like help their lover make pottery or the ghost in
question is a formerly beloved stand-up comedian whose history as a ghostly
father has forever been tainted by the suddenly realization that he’s been a
rapist all this time.Usually in the
more benevolent stories that involve ghosts, it’s love that proves to be their
unfinished business and the reason they stick around.That’s pretty much the entire game being played here
in If I Stay.

Mia Hall (Chloë Grace Moretz) has an absolutely perfect
life.She clearly won the lottery with
the coolest parents (played by Mireille Enos and Joshua Leonard) in all of
existence—they were former rock stars and it’s shown that they are the coolest
people in the neighborhood, they show nothing but support to their kids and they
are so hip and down with today’s youth that they are super open to their
daughter dating!And speaking of dating,
Mia is involved with Adam (Jamie Blackley), a slightly older boy who is in a
rock band that is on the verge of blowing up.Finally, Mia herself is involved with music and totes rocks on the cello
so hard that it looks like she might get into Julliard.Yep, everything is perfect for old Mia until a
car accident leaves her on death’s bed (and he's not keen on sharing his sleeping quarters).Now Mia is a g-g-g-g-ghost and she has to decide if she’ll move on to
the other side or…if she’ll stay.(Ooooh, that’s how they got the title!)

Pictured: The impossible family.

I can’t say I had high expectations going into the
film.However, I won’t deny that there’s
a part of me that had expectations that this might surprise me and I might find
this one to be really dramatic, emotional and maybe even a tad on the
tear-jerky side.Heck, I went into The Fault in Our Stars thinking I was going to find a cheesy tween feature but was
shocked how moved I was by it all.However, as you can clearly see from the score, I didn’t find that with
If I Stay.

Stacy Keach is in the movie, though. So, that's a plus.

As far as the performances go, this film isn’t too
shabby.Moretz is her usual great self
and the rest of the cast are all doing a fantastic job as well.If there’s a downside to any of the cast it
would have to be with Jamie Blackley as the boyfriend.He’s never terrible in his performance as
Adam but he was incredibly flat, bland and felt completely devoid of emotion
and was terribly wooden. That sounds harsh and like he was horrendous but, really, he was just serviceable; however, not memorable.

Play "Freebird!"

The issue I had with If I Stay is how unrealistic the whole
drama of the film feels.First off, the
dialogue is incredibly unrealistic.The
teens talk about love and relationships in a super over-the-top way.Adults don’t even talk about matters of the
heart this way and it just felt like a writer’s idealistic way of how they want the
flowery language of love to be talked about.And secondly, the entire drama of the film was pretty much impossible for
me to get into.

Come one! Dates when I was in high school was getting pizza.Eh, who am I kidding? I never got dates in high school.Thanks for opening up old wounds, movie!

There’s not a single thing about Mia’s life that is, in any
way, considered bad.Even the story’s
attempt to bring drama to her relationship with Adam is done only through the
reality that their combined futures are just too good.Mia’s life is, for all intents and purposes,
perfect.She has absolutely no drama
with her family, her future appears to have no hiccups as her music is taking
her to the best school in the country and her boyfriend in on the verge of
hitting it big with his band.The only
bad thing is the car accident (and yes, that is terrible) but to have the girl
ghost around questioning if she should stay or not is pretty damn silly and
very hard to sympathize with.

I’m not saying I went into If I Stay thinking I would find
myself saying, “That Mia girl is totally me, you guys” but it would have been
nice to actually sympathize with her.Sure, the film does offer up a heartbreaking twist to the accident
scenario but it comes long after she first questions if she should stay (and
this film loves to use that word “stay.”Seriously, you can make it a drinking game and you'd get pretty sauced.).For a majority of the movie, I found myself saying that her life was
absolutely perfect so where is there even a question over whether or not she
should make the leap back into her body.It made the entire experience really hard to both sit through and even harder
to sympathize with.

"If you stay, you'll stay on a staying course to the best life and you can stay stayingin that life."

If I Stay could have been a good movie for me.Sure, it would have been one of those films
that are more about manipulating the viewer than triggering a real emotional
response but there’s tons of easy notes the story could have hit to make the
story really hit home—even to the point it could make a 30 plus year old man
who spends more money on comics every week than he does on groceries understand what
a teenager girl who rocks the cello is going through.Instead, the film went this idyllic dream of
a writer’s perfect life and it made for a story that was too silly to take
seriously and that in turn made it super hard for me to get into.(And maybe the novel this is based on has the
same issue but I wouldn’t know because I haven’t read it and really don’t plan
on after watching this.)

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About Me

I'm a geek, an atheist (who is also an ordained reverend), a peanut butter and jelly enthusiast, a man who shares the same name with a popular character from "Parks & Rec" and feels he can't live up to the awesomeness of the fictional character, was proudly banned from Reddit, an occasional Shakespearean performer, and a stand up comic.
Have any questions, recommendations or wanna share any theories on various movies? Email me at RevRonMovies@gmail.com and I'll talk about them on my new Q&A segment!